January 17, 2017 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITIís Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks.

Pew Research Center rolled out a new set of fact sheets on key trends in digital technology: Internet/Broadband, Mobile, and Social Media. They will be updated as the organization collects new data. Current trends described include the fact that 77% of Americans own a smartphone, 73% of Americans have broadband service at home, 69% of American adults use social media, and 51% of Americans own a tablet.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) launched BJGP Open, its new OA journal, on the HighWire JCore (Journal Core) platform in order to enhance its discoverability. The British Journal of General Practice (BJGP), which serves the primary healthcare community, has been on JCore since 2013. BJGP Open will cover controversies in health policy and how they impact primary healthcare.

eLife partnered with Overleafto integrate more authoring tools into the eLife system. eLife will also streamline the article submission process by integrating Overleaf into the journal’s submission and review system, eJournal Press (EJPress). Authors can use Overleaf to create, edit, and share their scientific ideas, as well as collaborate with other authors. Additionally, eLife commissioned Overleaf to create a custom, open source LaTeX template for writing articles that makes them look similar to a PDF.

Cambridge University Press is starting a project designed to improve the discoverability of resources and ensure better MARC records for ebooks. So far, it has enhanced the metadata of more than 24,000 titles in its collections by having its library data analyst, Concetta La Spada, add subject headings, authorize forms of authors’ and editors’ names and series information, and remove punctuation marks that affected searching. The publisher will make further investments in this project in the coming year.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation granted the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) $1.5 million to help the organization expand public libraries’ access to ebooks for their collections, making them more easily available to readers. DPLA will work on piloting new ways to acquire ebook collections, including through collaborations with other institutions. It will also use these funds to create an open collection of popular ebooks in EPUB format that anyone can read.

In 2017, OverDrive will introduce more options for Advantage libraries that belong to a shared collection. This means that consortia members can fully customize their collections and access more curation capabilities, as well as market their own collections along with the larger consortium collection.

Self-publishing company Pronoun is rolling out a new royalty payment system that increases authors’ earnings on ebooks sold in the U.S. and Canada, as well as new product features designed to increase customization options and promotional opportunities for authors. Authors selling in the U.S. and Canada will now earn a 70% royalty rate for books priced $9.99 or lower and 65% for books priced higher than $9.99. Additionally, authors have the option to distribute to only the retailers they choose and to use the new Pronoun Author Pages, a service that helps them create professional-looking websites for their books (even those not published with Pronoun) for free.

The ProQuest platform and Alexander Street’s Academic Video Online: Premium collection of 50,000-plus videos can now be searched together to provide researchers with a comprehensive list of content such as documentaries, training videos, news, dissertations, and ebooks. They will have easier access to authoritative videos that are aligned with curricula, according to Allan Lu, ProQuest’s VP of research tools, services, and platforms. Topics covered in the videos include anthropology, business, history, and music.

EveryLibrary released its agenda for 2017, which focuses on bringing its expertise to coalitions that support library patrons. “We will join together [to] support the work of other organizations that address common concerns about our country, but may need to hear about libraries and librarians in a new way. Our hope is to find willing and engaged coalition partners who understand that libraries are part of the solution to problems facing America today,” writes executive director John Chrastka.

Areas of concern for 2017 include voter rights and ballot access, protections for public sector workers and pension reform, media literacy, information access and freedom of information, Net Neutrality and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and federal and state budgets and regulations.

ScienceOpen has 12 new publisher customers who gain increased visibility, usage, and branding for their indexed content by using the platform. They include EDP Sciences (STM content), Dove Medical Press (OA medical journals), UTS ePRESS (OA scholarly publishing from the University of Technology Sydney), and Equinox (social sciences and humanities content).